We Love Like We Are Dying
by dontstealmyvitaminies
Summary: Oneshot from 'The Hill', Howl & Toni: He wanted to go home and crawl in bed and cry, he wanted there to be a lock and a sign on the door that said 'No one can come in, because this is MY pain, and I'm not sharing'.


**A/N: So this is me, avoiding work, because I had an afternoon of freedom and I just had to get some words out of my system. This was originally going to be in 'Love and Other Labels', but I cut it out, and extended it to make a little one-shot. I'm going to add a few little one-shots from 'Love and Other Labels' and 'The Hill' here when I have time, but I'm really busy with year twelve now (nearly halfway through!) and I'm writing four other fics on the side (I thought I would stop writing when I stopped going on FFN, but I still am, I'm afraid! It keeps me sane :S) of my schoolwork. Anyways, so most of them will be depressing, a lot of them about Howl/Toni and George/Emilia, with a few about Will/Eli. But this is NOT a regular thing. **

**WARNING: This fic is a bit darker than I normally do, and deals with Antoinette's second miscarriage, Howl's reaction to it. So please, if you're sensitive on this kind of issue, then I would not advise you read it.**

Howl mindlessly struck a D minor chord on the ivory keys of his piano, the notes ringing out smoothly.

D

F

A

Don't

Fail

Antoinette.

It had been the promise he'd made to himself from the beginning of their relationship. The moment their lips collided and his heart was instantly weighted with purpose he'd not felt since he was a boy, he'd sworn to himself that he would never, _never_ cause her pain.

He gave a twisted, bitter smile as he toyed with the seventh and sharpened the third.

Dmaj7.

A completely different chord, not as melancholic as its minor counterpart, but it did nothing to lift the oppressive mood that was hanging over him. He _had_ caused her pain, time and time again, it seemed to be the only thing he was good at. Hurting the woman he loved, screwing up his life, relieving the anxious tension that burned up his body with the nail scissors in the bathroom cupboard when her kisses weren't near.

Another argument, another row...

He sometimes wondered if his life were some sort of dramatic television programme, if there were fifty million views all clamouring at screens to watch him made an idiot of himself once more.

His fingers shifted, the dropping the seventh, the first, third and fifth each rising one tone till a lingering, still somewhat morbid, but at least slightly hopeful, red and brown tinged E major rung out.

E

G

B

Everything

Gets

Better.

And he wished. Oh, how he wished, how his heart yearned in those quiet moments in the dead of the night, when her sleeping form was sprawled out beside him in their bed, when his chin was being tickled by her wispy blonde hair and when he had nothing to do but feel guilty for tainting her. He _wanted_ things to get better, he wanted them to be just as wonderful as they were on his 'good' days, he wanted so damn much but it would never be enough.

So he changed the chord again, hoping that a new collection of colours and tastes and sounds might alleviate his pain. The E dropped three semitones and the first turned into the third, the fifth taking the bronze. He gently hummed words as his fingers transformed into the chord sequence for one of his many morbid songs.

C#minor.

C

F

A

_Can't_

Fail

Antoinette.

But he had, and he'd done it so many times that it was a wonder he'd ever thought he might not have to. It had been so long since she was sneaking into his office during her free periods and letting him take off her starchy school blouse with tentative fingers, but when he counted the months, the weeks, the days, he realised that it had only been a year. One year since they were new and tentative and nervous, now they were... well, he suspected that there was no longer an 'us' or a 'we' or a 'they', because she'd walked out the front door and he didn't think she would come back. It had been a year since 'one' became 'two' and 'me' became 'we', but he still couldn't get used to it. He couldn't feel comfortable, it was like he had slipped into some lucky bastard's skin, and it was _his_ girlfriend who was cooking dinner when he walked through the front door, barefoot in the kitchen, singing a song in a language he barely understood, the scene of domestic bliss so perfectly _blissful_ that he would gladly give his all to obtain, but it was _never_ his.

So that greeny-yellow reddy-brown-hued thought dropped down to a B major, with a sharp here and a natural there and a fuzzy maybe sharp or maybe flat, and his murmurs turned to a gentle hum.

F

B

D

Fall

Back

Down.

And he did. He was pushed to the ground because he was owned by his 'disease', he was owned by his 'condition', it was who he was and who he would always be, just like he would always be a musician and he would always be the first man to love Antoinette Blanche Noëlle. So all he could do was fall back down to the earth, where the vermillion F sharp went for his jaw, the burnt sienna B natural grazed his cheek and the sharpened D added that little stinging blue bruise to the piano keys of his ribs.

And then the B fell and the D lifted and somewhere a C sharp crawled it's greeny-yellow way back in, till the Amajor rung out like something pinkish and yellowish and soothing, finishing, satisfying even, but what could be more soothing than her slender fingers running over his skin, tangling in his hair, plump red lips gently caressing their way over his grazed sienna cheek?

A

C

E

Antoinette

Can

Eradicate...

What could she eradicate? Exterminate? Eliminate? She could destroy his pain and make him feel human, she could touch him and hold him and kiss him and make him believe that _yes_, things _will_ get better, and things _will_ be alright one day, but she was just another one of his 'good days' – when she was gone he would be left devastated. Empty.

Antoinette

Causes

Emptiness.

He stopped playing, leant forwards with his elbows causing a discordant clash on the keys, supporting his head in his hands and crying like a pathetic, wounded child. His shoulders shook and he let out a hoarse, choked sob, because everything was ruined and he damn well knew it.

He slammed his open palm over the keys, giving a choked cry as each tone wounded him.

A is for acceptance, aggravation and aching-oh-the-aching.

G is for gone, goodbye, and God-I-wish-things-were-different.

D is for destruction, disaster, darling-just-put-the-knife-down, D is for death.

B is for begging, bawling, bruising and belonging.

B is for baby.

Not baby-please-don't-cry or baby-I-love-you-too, but _baby_.

As in there _was_ a baby, but now there wasn't.

As in his _child_ had _died_, and there was not a damn thing he could have done to save it. What kind of father was he, when he couldn't protect the tiny, helpless little thing that had been safe and warm in its mother's womb, only to now be a blip on a medical record, or a moment of silence when someone mentions something particularly painful? He had failed his baby by not doing _everything_ he could have.

But because no one but he and Antoinette knew this child had ever existed, he wasn't allowed to grieve for it. _Her_. It had been a her, he was certain of it. He wasn't allowed to weep for his daughter because his lover didn't know that he knew, and he couldn't, he just _couldn't_ make her think that she had to relieve the burden on his shoulders like she always did, not when she should be grieving too.

But she wasn't. She was fine, it was as if nothing had happened at all – and the thought was enough to drive him mad. He wanted to shake her and cry '_why isn't this killing you too?_', he wanted her to cry and weep and clutch onto his collar with her head buried in his chest as she mourned their loss together. He wanted her to admit that there was something to cry about, instead of the insufferable silence that seemed to linger when she walked into the room.

He had tried to adopt some ancient proverb that said it would be easier to give his baby girl away, than consider her taken from him.

But there was no fucking proverb that would make losing her any easier.

It was just one of the many scars that he had to bear, one of the many wounds that he wrapped up with clean cloth and pretended didn't exist, but he would _never_ be able to wake up thinking it's okay that the 'we' that should have been 'three' was missing a 'she'. That his barely eighteen-year-old lover had already experienced the most hideous loss a woman could endure, and that it was _his_ fault because he hadn't been a man and taken her to the doctor the moment he found out that there was a 'one' to join their 'two'.

And then there was some stupid row about groceries or something ridiculous that he couldn't remember. All he knew was that he was angry and heartbroken after seeing a young couple with their newborn in the market when she was asking if he wanted chocolate or caramel ice cream.

Because he felt angry and confused, and it was a giant, silent, grating pain that he'd never felt before, he wanted to leave and he wanted to be alone in the dark, he wanted to stamp his feet and run in several different directions and explode in a fit of glass-bottle-green anguish and nervous, hideous _frustration_. He wanted those _people_ to go away with their goddamned child, those lucky, happy people whose silent fears had obviously not been heard by some all-knowing being who had transformed his anxieties into the distinct lack-of-my-baby that was now looming before him.

And he didn't know how to _deal_, because it wasn't just grief, because he knew grief and pain but this was something different, something that penetrated every ounce of his being. So he didn't want to choose between chocolate or caramel ice cream, he wanted to go home and crawl in bed and cry, he wanted there to be a lock and a sign on the door that said '_No one can come in, because this is MY pain, and I'm not sharing_', he didn't even want Antoinette to hold him and make the problems go away, because he was hurting and she obviously wasn't, because she could still smile and laugh and acknowledge a difference between flavours of dessert foods, when to him, everything was just grey and empty.

So they rowed. In the privacy of their home, like a good struggling couple, and it didn't make him feel even the least bit better. He was still hurting, but now she was spending the night at George's place and he was alone.

His bed was cold and empty when he slid into it, wishing so damn much that he at least had Antoinette in it. So he stared at the ceiling and pretended he was dead, pretended that nothing in life mattered, because he didn't want it to, but the truth was that it _did_.

"Hey," came a soft little croak as the door slowly opened. He sat up, and noted the pale, tear-stained cheeks, the watery blue-grey eyes, the slightly trembling lithe hands.

"Hey," he returned quietly. She stood there somewhat awkwardly, staring at the floor. She looked so out of place in his room, because it was so decidedly masculine and she was so... _not_.

"I'm sorry," she murmured quietly. He shook his head.

"Don't be. _I'm_ sorry. I shouldn't –" he stopped himself, and sighed. "I love you, you know," he said suddenly. She smiled, and crossed the room, leaning over to press a small kiss to his lips. He smoothed back her short white-blonde hair and mirrored her small smile.

She sat on the side of the bed, and slid her bright yellow converse trainers off, then her dark grey skinny-led jeans, her white and navy striped jumper falling too her thighs as she crawled into bed beside him, warm, fluffy socks against his calf.

"I love you too," she said quietly against his neck.

"I don't know if I can hold on much longer," he admitted, after a long period of silence. She shifted slightly. "I mean –"

"I know what you mean."

He smoothed her short hair with soft fingers.

"You are..." his voice caught and he feared he would cry again. "_So _important to – to me, but I don't think I can –"

"Please, Howl. I know," she said, her voice firm and finalising. He nodded silently, and held her as tightly as he could without hurting her.

He'd thought that until he had healed, he would not let anyone into his space.

But he should have known that his silly rhymes like 'Antoinette Can Eradicate' meant a little more than just silly words to match musical notes.

Because she could. She could eradicate the spaces left behind when he lost what he'd not really had in the first place.

So his 'space' would be for two.

Until he had healed.

**A/N: Sigh. So depressing. The next one won't be, however, it will be what I was originally going to write as the epilogue for 'The Hill'. Anyway, please review, I miss and love you all. I want to update this soon, before my seventeenth birthday (7****th**** of March, peoples! I will be halfway finished my HSC by the time I turn seventeen! Win!), but a review for this would be a nice present. :D This is posted in 'Pride and Prejudice' because I can't really think of where else to put it, 'Emma' seems a bit of a stretch, I dunno... Anyway, come back and check sometime soon for the next one :D**

**PS: The song Howl is playing is 'Leave' by The Swell Season (Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova), which I was listening to at the time. **


End file.
